Splash
by Rhyolight04
Summary: Some of what John got up to while Sherlock was away (mostly canon compliant w S1& S2). Crossover with Ben Aaronovitch's Rivers of London stories; begins after Whispers Underground. Spoilers for first four books. You don't have to have read Ben Aaronovitch (John hasn't!) but you might really like to.
1. Chapter 1

AN:

It can be read in-universe with Recovery Position, between Chapters 16 and 17.  
>It is in-universe with Advice for the Lovelorn, but isn't really integral. John's reflections on his sexuality have been influenced by events in Unwrapping.<p>

I am spending NaNoWriMo trying to get on a better course, writing more often. It will update, but I can't guarantee they'll happen as often as I'd like.

Warnings and tags may change (there may be heterosexual activity) but not too violently. Characters will be added as they appear.

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter One: John Falls Into Dubious Company<strong>

John stood once more on Westminster Bridge, wondering. Did it always have to be night? There were no stars or planets in the sky this evening. Traditional fog, at least the post-Clean Air Act variety. But he hoped she would come. He'd lain awake for hours, the past few nights, since the thought crossed his mind. He didn't really know the right people to consult; Mycroft, perhaps, but John could not make himself believe they might have a civil conversation about incorporeal powers—well, 'differently corporeal' powers. And he didn't want Mycroft's advice.

It wasn't born of desperation or a wish to end himself. Life was in many ways better than Captain Watson could have envisioned after invaliding out. He was still what Sherlock had made of him: living, functioning, smoothly walking and running (and shooting), sharper of gaze and more confident of conclusions (it meant he needed to be especially careful about the gun, Mycroft's special permit or no). The sorrow was a bearable companion these days, only rarely sharp enough to cut. But John felt no pull toward the horizon; the power that had made him run—Sherlock's energy—was gone from his life.

Perhaps the space his friend taken left places within him he'd never explored. Perhaps the loss of the mad scientist who made 221B into a pathology lab, or an alchemist's, left room for unquantified forces, unproveable effects; things from places other than the rational mind. It made him—John might have said of someone else—fanciful. The first time, that night last autumn when a woman had appeared—the right word, not 'walked up to him'—and told him not to despair, John had changed.

Once aware of a hidden current, he felt its waves more often: a new patient, who told him she'd been sent by the river; the look on Lestrade's face when he greeted a young detective from a different division; Lady Ty in the background while a television reporter interviewed the Member of Parliament for Greater London.

So as the calendar year was ending he'd found himself remembering old words, and he sought them out, rereading books he'd loved long before. He did not speak them, was careful not to bind himself, but _"…swear by the Living and the Dead, by the Past and the Future, by Memories and Hopes, that if a Vision comes begging at our door we will take it in and warm it at our hearth, …"_

_"In Life's name and for Life's sake, I assert that I will employ the Art. I will guard growth and ease pain… In the practice of my Art, I will put aside fear for courage, and death for life…"_

And the less formal ones:

_"I will take the Ring, though I do not know the way."_

_"I'm taking her back to my place, Jess. I can't just leave her._

_"Whattya think? Want to join up?"_

An impulse of his own: _"Use mine—"_

And the universes had answered all of them:_"Fear not."_

So he went to the bridge again on the night the year would change, knowing he should not hope (he wasn't much about hoping anyway, anymore), not knowing what he would hope for, and he thought of the shape in his head that the woman had filled, and he watched boats chug past on the water beneath and hear people singing or laughing, as the old year passed like the water itself.

The air had warmed, changed, filled. John inhaled the scent of diesel and bananas, saltwater and coffee, chocolate and fish guts, fenugreek, cumin, chilis, fried fish and chips. Tidal flats, gardenia. "I don't come when I am called," she said, when he noticed she was there.

"I wouldn't want you to, Mother Thames."

"You're lonely."

"It's New Year's. Everyone is…no, they're lonely on Christmas. They're confused now. Waiting."

She waited, with him or for him. Time hung motionless, round, pendant, like the drop at the tip of a stony icicle. The moment of stillness was all he could have asked.

"Do you think I know the future, John Watson?"

"Maybe. If time is really like a river."

"And would I tell you? Deep waters run still."

"No one I trust seems to speak in straight lines." He shook his head. "Mother Thames. I want to ask you for something, but I'm frightened. Do you look after fools and children too?"

"Some of them. You know the rules: no boon comes without cost. What do you want to know?"

"I want to know… what I can do. Is there something I can do, for you?"

"Why, John Watson. You have surprised me."

He relaxed a little. "I hoped it wasn't too far out of line, to ask if there was something you wanted done. What I miss—one of the the things I miss—is being useful. I know I'm useful as a doctor, but there are many doctors. And though I half don't believe I've ever spoken to you, I thought—doing something for you would matter."

"I don't know how many years it's been since a knight offered the River his sword. Not just a knight, a captain."

John was pleased—even awed—by the wonder in her voice. But he'd also read enough of the stories to set limits. "I know it's dangerous to offer you too much, and I have oaths I must keep."

She was pleased by a display of common sense; not many saw through the glamour, and so not many were much use. "I would not come between you and your honour. If your art or Her Britannic Majesty call on you, you must obey, with my blessing. Your life is not your own to give me. And because you have offered, and been humble, I will not take what you have not intended to offer." She looked out down the sweep of the water, lost in brightened mist. "The solstice is just past. Until the next one, I may call on you. Does it suit?"

John had been thinking longer-term, but as she spoke he knew she offered a kindness. She took his hands and put them, palm-to-palm, between her own. "Do you know the words?"

"I remember some," he said. He cleared his throat. "I, John, do become your liege man this day, of life, limb, and earthly worship, against all manner of folk—"

"—Where your oath is not already given. And I do take your service, until Midsummer Day; my honour is yours, and yours, mine, and no evil shall prevail against us."

The air shimmered around them. John felt as though a wave rolled over him, neither air nor water nor anything he could hear; but his breath came easier. Mama Thames looked at him intently, raised his chin, and kissed him on the lips. She stopped before he could respond. "No," she said, "Not for me. John, go home, and go to sleep, and in the morning, go to work."

Before he could form a question, she had gone.

Late the next day, John was meeting Greg Lestrade at New Scotland Yard. Dinner, drinks, and darts. Greg was trying to get out of his office; phones kept ringing. Greg stood talking on the his desk telephone, tethered and impatient, looking suddenly wary at someone coming through the cubicles. It was the very young officer John had seen before, the one whom Lestrade had watched with a reserve he never showed another policeman: not uniform, but not senior to anyone. His skin was about the same shade as Sally Donovan's; his face was less unhappy. He carried himself with a sureness completely out of line with the way people tried to ignore him. He came past all the desks and stuck his head into Greg's glass house. Greg gestured at the telephone, unable to greet him; the young man shook his head.

"Dr. Watson? May I have a word?"

John followed his lead out toward the windows.

"I'm PC Peter Grant, it's an honour to meet you."

"Ah, thank you?" John wasn't quite sure what was going on. They stared at one another for a moment.

"Umm," said Grant. "Not easy to explain. I work for the dodgy end of Economics and Specialist Crimes Unit."

John couldn't recall ever meeting them; the Turner painting had been some other division, and the jewel thefts. They sounded as though they might be computer hackers. "I'm sorry?" he asked. "Have you decided we did something new wrong?"

"Oh, no," said Peter. "No. Less official. Some of our contacts told us—me—I might want to be in touch. Well, that you—Mama Thames?"

Comprehension broke over John, at least to some extent; he saw Peter's relief as it did. It was strange to hear that name from anyone; he'd half decided he had dreamed both his meetings. "Are you—part of her, ah, her organisation?'

"Definitely not," said Peter. "But I am liaison for the Met to, umm, the riverine community, if you can call it that. It's not like the—" he sighed. "Look, my department deal with things that don't make much sense outside of context where that kind of thing makes perfect sense. You seem to have signed on as a knight or something to the River, Effra wasn't clear. Does this make any sense to you?"

"I don't know an Effra." If John had expected anything, it would not have been from a police officer. But then he'd never expected it from Mycroft, either. "But you know of Mother Thames? Have you met her too?"

"Several times," Peter said. "I started with my unit after I interviewed a ghost about a murder; that's when I found out the Metropolitan Police have specialists in magical disturbances of the Queen's Peace. Paranormal, if you prefer. But not space aliens." He waited, John thought, to be told to piss off. John took pity.

"She didn't seem like that sort," he told Peter. "Magical, perhaps, but not disturbing the peace."

"You'd be surprised. Not directly. But you wouldn't like to see her angry."

"No," John said, "I wouldn't. Is she angry, often?"

"Not often, no." Peter hesitated. "What do you know of her?"

"I know that, twice, I've been standing on Westminster Bridge, and she has…appeared, and said some probably insightful things. I've met enough other dubious shadowy people to know that Mother Thames isn't like any of the usual kind. She answers thoughts before I've spoken them, which isn't completely unprecedented in my life…but it feels like different means from usual. I don't know what she is, but I know I needed…something, and she answered. I don't know what the hell to make of it, but you're here so I don't think it's just a psychotic interlude."

"No," said Peter Grant. "Not something you made up, but not something everyone's aware of. And on the whole, probably just as well."

"No, I wouldn't like people to be depending on a strange African woman to stop them jumping off a bridge."

"Were you—?"

"No," John said. "No. But I'm not what I would consider 'of sound mind', quite, either." He tried to keep his tone light, but a dead man on a pavement swam before his mind's eye, as it tended to.

"I'm terribly sorry for your loss, by the way. It's everyone's loss." Peter Grant looked at John like a real person: not a tragic hero, not a dupe. "I don't think he was a fraud. I'm sorry I think it's important to say so."

"I can tell that by the way you've spoken to me, but thanks. He wasn't a fraud…I haven't been in very good shape since last summer"—Peter nodded—"and the first time I met her, last autumn, I thought it was—I don't know, grief or exhaustion; but then I met a Lady Cecelia Tyburn-Thames at Mycroft Holmes's office, and he's not someone whom I'd ever think sees…well, fairies at the bottom of the garden. Neither am I. And you don't look like you are, either."

"I haven't seen anything with cute little wings wearing a bluebell on its head, but there's more out there than I had any idea," said Peter.

John nodded. "On New Year's Eve I saw Mother Thames a second time. I asked her if there was anything she needed done I could help with."

Peter Grant looked at him. "You couldn't just apply to be a Special Constable or something?"

"Lestrade's suggested that more than once, but no. Not all of us want to be police."

Peter nodded. "I never wanted to be a soldier. Any road, it's not my business, Effra was clear on that, but she thought I might like to know, and I thought you might like to know someone in consensual reality you could call on, if you need it. I rather hope you will."

"Consensual reality?" John asked. "Is that what the rest of us call 'the real world'?"

" 'The rest of _them_,' " Peter corrected. "You have a foot squarely planted outside that now. Effra said you had 'offered your sword' to her mother. Do you have any idea what you're supposed to be doing? In this context, I mean?"

"Not in most of them," John said. "Well. Not true. I'm managing real life well enough, but I volunteered—outside of it, I suppose. That's what I miss, I need that, and I didn't want to look for it in drugs or alcohol or— and Mother Thames came to me one night and told me I mattered."

"Most people matter," Peter told him. "DI Lestrade is the real thing, and I know you matter to him."

"I need to matter to myself," John said. "And after Sherlock…it just isn't working."

"And Mama Thames took your service."

"And I have no idea what that means, but I trust her more than Mycroft Holmes or the army."

Peter looked at him gravely. "Fan of Japanese movies?"

"Not so much."

"So the word em_ronin/em_ doesn't signify…knight errant?"

" 'Only a flesh wound?' "

Peter shook his head. "I think it means you should come and meet my sensei."

"Your what?"

"The man whose apprentice I am, Chief Inspector Nightingale. Come to the Folly and have dinner with us. Give us a call, but most nights are good. Unless a case has hotted up."

"I understand that," John said. Grant gave John his card, greeted Lestrade respectfully, and left. Lestrade looked after him.

"What did he want, John?"

"To invite me to dinner," John said. It seemed easier to leave out the circumstances.

"You have a talent, don't you?" Greg said to John. "Some sort of lighting rod."

"What do you mean? Are you going to warn me off?"

"I dunno; would you like an excuse? They're good coppers, they're just…"

"He said 'magical disturbances of the Queen's Peace.' "

"Creepy X-Files bastards, I try not to know. I haven't had to call them. I don't know whether Sherlock ever ran across them either, God knows what they would have made of one another."

"You're supposed to tell me that one day there'll be a djinn in the Albert Hall and Peter Grant will have put it there."

"What?" asked Lestrade.

"Nothing; sorry. But they're coppers like you?"

"Different department, same bosses. Not many of them. Plainclothes. I've never heard they were anything but good men. Just… not quite our type."

For the next few days, John went about his life. His nightmares had gone away again; probably not forever, but any quiet night was a good one. He did find himself drawn to walk along the Thames more than he had been doing, and the empty place on the bedroom wall where a periodic table had hung finally called out insistently enough he found himself at a poster shop, buying an old picture of the Embankment, streetlights light haloed in the fog along the river. He Googled 'ronin' and watched some Japanese cinema; the visuals were gorgeous, but he was profoundly grateful not to be Japanese.

Then his mobile, shrilling next to his pillow in the dark, woke him. He answered calmly and instantly, as though he had been waiting.

A woman's voice, not so deep as Mother Thames, still slightly accented—Nigerian?—but younger."Dr. Watson. In the River's name, can you come?"

That seemed clear enough. "Where?" he asked, pulling on his trousers.

"I'll text you the address. It will have to be a cab. Bring your medical kit."

He dressed warmly, semi-professionally; wondering if he would regret not wearing waterproof boots. The address was near the King's Stairs Gardens, on the south side of the river. For once, he had no trouble attracting a taxi as soon as he reached Marylebone Street, but it was still more than half an hour before John found himself alone in the streetlights at his destination. Nothing on his jacket to indicate that he was a medic, not that London's muggers observed the Geneva Conventions.

After a few moments he could hear a bunch of people trying to speak softly; he went toward the noise.

"Cursed thing turned on me," someone—male, Londoner, older than John—said. "Fuckin' _hurts_, sorry."

"Most people have enough sense not to tease them," a woman said. She sounded like the voice on John's phone.

"Ah, hallo? It's John Watson?" John called out, drawing near. Four or five people—it was hard to tell in the harshness of the street light and the shadows around it— gathered by the water's edge. Someone sat on the ground.

"Over here," said the woman. As John's eyes adjusted to the gloom he saw a black woman, slighter and younger than Mother Thames, her hair in tidy dreadlocks pulled back from her face; two or three other young people, and a battered-looking older white man, sitting on the round cradling his arm. There was blood; the woman was holding someone's t-shirt wadded-up against it, but she seemed calm. Nothing was dripping.

"I need more light," John said.

Someone sighed. "You have your phone?" asked Peter Grant. "Digital thermometer, tricorder, anything like that?"

"I left my phone in the car," John said. "It wouldn't be bright enough, really—" and someone behind him focussed an LED lantern on his patient.

"How's that?" asked Peter Grant.

"Good! Thanks. What happened here? Can we get your shirt off, sir?"

"I'm not taking off my weskit on a night like this—"

"Aelred, he needs to be able to see how badly you're hurt—" began one of the girls.

"Your sleeve's pretty much a dead loss as it is," John said. "I'll cut it? Fine." He was used to wounds; at least this man wasn't bleeding out from the abdomen. "Are you hurt anywhere else?"

"Bruise on my bum, I imagine. I think I twisted my ankle when I jumped back from t'river's edge."

"Your head's all right?" John pointed a penlight at the man's eyes and nearly dropped it. His eyes were light brown and the pupils were rectangular, like a goat's. But they responded to the light, and matched in size.

"It was, until you shone your damned light in my face."

"Aelred—"

"Sorry." The old man didn't seem sorry, but John had treated more recalcitrant people in his time.

"You can take the pressure off for a moment, miss—"

"My name is Raven; I am a daughter of Mama Thames," said the woman, carefully moving the wad aside. An artery spurted at them; Peter, John, and Aelred all said 'Fuck!" simultaneously. One of the girls giggled as Raven replaced the pressure.

"He needs an A&E," John said. "Can you move your fingers?"

The man wiggled them, carefully; it plainly hurt, but John was relieved to see that, too.

"Not going—"

"He won't go—" said one of the girls at the same time.

"He's not in the system," Constable Grant said. "He's not one of ours."

"Well, THEY need to—" began John, shocked.

"Doctor Watson, are you saying you cannot deal with an injury such as this?" asked Raven.

"No," John said, nettled, "I'm saying he could use better care than I can give him."

"Well, yours is what he will take," she said. "What do you need?"

It was not the battlefield. No one seemed to be trying to shoot at them. He had enough supplies for a skirmish, a firefight; this was only one man, with what looked like a messy gash most of the length of his left forearm. "Clean water, ideally hot; more light. Is there a surface, a picnic table anywhere nearby?"

There was a table not many meters away, it turned out, and the little party went to it. John laid out a sterile pad, big enough for the man to put his arm down on and for John to lean in, and someone produced an open litre bottle of water.

"Is it clean? Has anyone drunk out of it?" John asked, rolling up his sleeves and pouring antiseptic wash on each of his hands.

"Nothing in the water will hurt him, Doctor, I promise you."

"You've _heard_ of sepsis, haven't you? And I'll need someone else to scrub. Constable Grant?"

"I can't," said Grant. "I have to hold the light. Do you need the water boiling?"

"Just warm would be nice, is someone getting it from a loo—?"

"No, just a moment—" The water in the bottle glowed and then bubbled; the threaded part of the bottle-top melted sadly to one side. John stared at it as the water steamed. "Did you put a sodium pellet in there or something."

"Something," said Peter. "May be a bit hot, sorry."

"Olympia," said Raven. "Wash your hands as the doctor will tell you."

A slim black girl—about fifteen, John thought—put her hands out for antiseptic wash. "Get it in well around your fingernails," said John. "Good, they're not too long. Okay, gloves—" He laid out sutures and a clamp and the other things, and gloved himself. Olympia watched him, and did a credible job getting the gloves on while maintaining sterility. "Are you allergic to anything, Mr. Aelred?"

His patient looked at him without welcome.

"I want to give you something for the pain and you're going to need antibiotics." Aelred looked like a reasonably tidy homeless man, or a labourer from another era. He wore layers of ragged but serviceable clothing, and mud along one of his sides from sole to armpit—em"Dragged along the bank. BY the arm—"/em announced his inner diagnostician.

"Morphine will be fine," said Raven. "He won't need antibiotics."

John stared at her. "Are you kidding?" She shrugged at him.

John jabbed his patient with a syringe. Aelred tensed, and then exhaled as the drug began to take hold. "More light now?" asked Peter.

"Yes, please. Okay, it's going to be a bit messy, you're not going to faint, are you?"

"I am NOT," Olympia said, with all the hauteur of youth.

"People do, just let us know, all right? All right, then, Ms. Raven's going to take away the pressure and I'm going to put your thumb on the artery, all right? It's going to feel like something alive—it is, yeah?—so don't be startled, and DON'T let go while I clean it up a bit—" John swabbed the undamaged part of Aelred's arm bicep clean with warm water and then with alcohol.

The next few minutes were messy and utterly absorbing—well, it seemed like a few minutes, but John's back and arms were tired when they could finally relax. He'd tied off the artery—a small one, fortunately—made sure the layers of muscle were touching the right other layers, and finally lined the edges of the wound back together, put a dressing over it all, and made an adequate sling. He tried to recall times in the army when he'd patched up civilians, unable to send them to anything he recognised as a hospital; but this was London, he could see the skyglow across the river. It felt wrong to be tending a wound like an unusually hygienic early Victorian. "No antibiotics?" he asked Raven again, just to be sure.

She shook her head. "None needed, I promise you. And he emmight/em not be allergic, but I doubt that you wish to monitor him."

"He should have someone one with him for a day or so; either the pain or the drugs will leave him dopey. And I'd like to check on it in the daylight."

The patient and the women all looked at one another, and John moved away; they needed a moment. Peter asked, "You're done with the light for now?"

"Yes, thanks," John said, turning around. He expected the young policeman's arms to be tired of holding up the lantern; but the light went out and even after John's eyes adjusted there was no lantern to be seen.

Peter saw John looking for it. "Yeah, magic, I'm afraid."

"Heating the water in the bottle, as well?"

"Yeah."

"Can you make tea?"

"I _haven't,_" said Peter, "but now that you raise the question…I don't know how my guvnor would feel about that, might be considered light-minded. On the other hand it's all about control and precision; he might approve."

"Well, it was a damned handy trick for this occasion, thanks. Could you actually boil it? I don't know how she can be so casual about sterility—"

"River water and River people," Peter said. "Well, 'people' in the wider sense of the term, anyway."

"Yeah. His eyes—" said John. "What…?"

"Do you really want to know?"

"I don't really need to know," said John, realising it was true. "He bleeds. Raven seemed to know he could tolerate morphine. Don't want more antibiotics around if they aren't needed. What bit him, though? I thought blind white alligators were confined to the sewers in New York."

"It wasn't blind or white," Raven said, joining them. "Or an alligator, as such."

"I am reliably informed they pose no threat to the general population," Peter said. "If this one gets a taste for blood, Raven, I hope you'll let someone know."

"We look after our own," she told him. "But if there's a hunt I don't imagine you want to miss it. You've no more sense than anyone your age, for all your powers." John wondered if Raven were all that much older than Peter; she didn't look it.

"You look after your own, but you got Dr. Watson out of a warm bed to help—"

"For the time being, he is our own, and it was a nasty bite. Aelred's a fool sometimes. Doctor, you have my number—call me later and we'll arrange for you to see him tomorrow."

"I can come to his home—"

"He's not entirely at ease with that; we'll meet you here."

"I'd like to bring him something for the pain—here's some pills for the next 24 hours—but it's not easy to prescribe narcotics for someone who doesn't exist."

She handed him her own NHS card, 'Marcia Ravensbourne-Thames'. "Don't think of it as fraud," she told him, as he copied her information. "It's fealty. Do you have any trouble covering the expense of all that?" She indicated the neatly folded bundle of biohazard.

"No," John said. "I've become surprisingly well-off." He hadn't wanted Sherlock's legacy, but Mycroft hadn't asked. No wonder Sherlock had never stinted on taxis.

She nodded. "Thank you for coming out. We'll try not to make it a habit."

"It's what I'm for," John told her, and meant it.

"Goodnight, then, both of you." Before he knew it John found himself walking away with Peter Grant away from the river.

"We're dismissed," said Peter, confidently. "Want a lift back to yours, or an early breakfast at ours?"

"It _is_ still early; I'll catch another couple of hours sleep," John said. "How did you happen to be there?"

"Believe it or not, I was giving Olympia a driving lesson. At least this time of night there's no much for her to hit. When she told me she wanted to come here, I stayed around to see she was all right, not that she needs my protection with her family."

"Who are they?"

"They're all some of Mama Thames's daughters." Peter unlocked his car and opened the door for his passenger.

"Some?"

"It's a very large river, after all."

"Who was my patient, come to that?"

"I think he's a troll," Peter said.

"And that means?"

"'I've no better idea than you do, really. I know someone at UCH who would greatly appreciate a chance at a blood sample." Peter glanced at the bundle of medical waste.

John thought about it. "I don't think we can, really. I can ask for permission when I see the patient next, though." He was surprised at the warmth in Peter's expression. "It's a fairly clear ethical question, surely?"

"It really depends who you ask," Peter said.

John went to his afternoon shift at Sarah's practice and filed a prescription for three days worth of moderately strong painkillers under 'Marcia Ravensbourne Thames'; the NHS had no problem with that at all, beyond a routine remark that he was now her registered physician. After a moment's thought John decided he did not, as yet, need to read her medical history (another question to ask if he saw her again). Scarcely five minutes later his phone rang.

"What have you done now, Doctor Watson?" asked Mycroft Holmes. They were on easier terms now that John understood the circumstances of Sherlock's death: that Mycroft and his brother had been working together against Moriarty, and Sherlock had given him permission to…John knew the word 'betray' was not accurate, but it still rankled. There _should_ have been some other way, the two most devious men (surely) in England against a single madman. He shook it off.

"What exactly do you mean, Mycroft?"

"Further involvement with the, ah, Thames family?"

"They needed my services."

"I cannot believe this will end well. Must you?"

"Why can't you believe it?" John asked. He reminded himself that Mycroft had truly loved his brother, and tried to quiet the voice that suggested the damage to Mycroft's political pride must have hurt just as much as what passed for his heart.

"Because they are not what they appear, and historically—"

"'Historically', Mycroft? Really the right word? You mean Tam Lin? emMidsummer Night's Dream/em?"

"Of course if you insist of making an ass of yourself—"

"I've done it before. Mother Thames didn't seem like, umm, what I've heard of the Fair Folk. Nor your Lady Ty."

"I have been fortunate enough thus far not to have made the acquaintance of any seelie or unseelie courts."

"Are they real, too?"

"I have no information on the subject. Thank God. John, I mean regular mortals mixing with—" Mycroft hesitated.

"At least some of them bleed, and hurt. Still not altogether certain about you."

"Is Lady Marcia badly injured? I assume she was the reason for your nocturnal perambulations."

"You could stop surveilling me, you know. Couldn't you?"

"Not really," Mycroft said, neither sneering nor backing down. There was a heartbeat, where John didn't say that the game was over, and Mycroft didn't have to equivocate, and in the space John tried not to notice the sprig of hope that persisted growing in the broken place within him. They both sighed, hardly an exhale.

"You're not going to ask me the nature of my relationship with the Lady of the Lake? I assure you it's no having any effect of my understanding of constitutional monarchy."

"John, while I am delighted that your pawky sense of humour has recovered to this extent, you must resist casting your experience in the light of Monty Python. These are serious matters."

"I know that, Mycroft." John was always surprised when Mycroft showed any grasp of popular culture. "I offered Mother Thames my sword. Is that serious enough?'

Another heartbeat of silence. And another. John nearly felt concerned. "Mycroft? Saving the oaths I swore to the Crown and to, umm, Apollo Physician. And she only's only keeping me on until the summer. I guess I'm on probation. But I think I'm relatively safe."

He still had the feeling that Mycroft was dumbfounded, gob-stopped, horrified. "If you wanted a more demanding occupation I could have found you something in Military Intelligence," he said at last.

"I didn't want to be a spy," John said. And despite their emdétente/em he doubted he would ever want to be one of Mycroft's underlings.

Mycroft sighed deeply, indicating elaborate, world-weary exasperation; John could all but hear the wheels turning. He would have waited for Sherlock's train of thought to come to a complete stop; but Mycroft didn't deserve the courtesy. More than likely, John would be 'invited' to board it when it was least convenient.

"I enjoy our chats, Mycroft, but I'm working. Have a lovely afternoon and don't start any wars."

"Most of my endeavours are rather in opposition to that, Doctor, I assure you. Do be careful."

John met Raven and Aelred at the same picnic table late that afternoon, gathering a few strange looks from mums and toddlers. By daylight, the 'troll' was unremarkable: perhaps a homeless man, perhaps an eccentric with a taste for eighteenth-century workingman's garb and not washing more often than he needed to. The smell was noticeable, but not unpleasant like old sweat or urine; more like woodsmoke with a hint of pond-muck. He did have a lot of unruly hair—head, ears, eyebrows. And there was the matter of his eyes. John tried not to stare. Someone had removed the torn and bloody sleeve of his shirt and replaced it with a light, unfitted tube, slit to the shoulder, fastened closed by easily-undone buttons. "Nice work," John said as he unbuttoned them.

"Ah, she said the same of yours."

The wound was knitting well, no sign of redness or swelling. John had Aelred move his fingers again (the old man complained, but complied); barely seven minutes after his arrival, he was ready to button the sleeve up once again.

"Hardly worth your while," Raven commented.

"I rarely see anything heal this cleanly," John said. He emnever/em saw anything heal so free of infection outside of a proper hospital surgical procedure, and not always then.

"I told you," she said. "We look after our own. There are compensations for the way we are."

But HOW are you? John wanted to ask. Raven looked at him with irritating serenity and there was no danger of her telling him anything. Something to experience rather than explain, then. Charming. On first seeing her in the light, today, he had thought Raven was younger than he'd believed in the night. Now she seemed to share a portion of Mother Thames's agelessness. Was it her tilted cat's-eyes or her gravity?

"Mistress," Aelred interrupted their lack of dialogue, "since you're here, will you lay your hands on it again?"

"Most certainly. I thought Doctor Watson's little pills were doing all you needed?"

"Belt AND braces," Aelred muttered. He'd huffed when John gave him the prescription bottle, though he'd taken it quickly enough.

"Very well," said Raven. Aelred shifted a bit on the seat of the picnic table, laying his arm out. Raven, across from him and next to John, reached out to his forearm and gently, carefully, put one hand on either side of the stitches. They both closed their eyes; John grasped a sudden waft of coal and diesel, horses, hay and beer, machine oil and ink and glassware, as Aelred relaxed visibly, his massive gnarled frame settling into itself.

It was not by any means the first time John had seen 'healing hands', but it was the first time he could recall being pulled in. Perhaps it was just mirroring the relaxation of the two people? He found himself breathing deeply, accepting that the moment needed nothing from him. There were birds, and thin January light, and the table was solid. He heard Raven speaking to him.

"May I, Doctor?"

"Sure," he said, "Please." Raven turned and put both her hands on John's scarred shoulder. It was behaving well enough, as it did when he kept up with the exercises, so he was surprised when Raven's touch loosened an ache he hadn't known he had. Relaxation poured into him as though he'd swallowed a shot of Scotch, without the burn, without the dizziness. It was like the times he woke up warm and slowly, or falling asleep after heavy work and a good meal. Gradually the sensation lightened and he felt himself back in his body, driving rather than drifting, opening his eyes as Raven took her hands from his shoulder. She was looking at him, concern on her face. Aelred was gone; the sun had moved a bit farther west.

"You've had some hard times," she said. "Soaked it up like a towel."

John didn't bother to answer. "Thank you," he said. "That was, umm, good but strange." He moved his left arm and shoulder, trying to assess any difference.

"Strange for a healer not ever to have been offered healing."

"Not really," he said, thinking of the hospital in Afghanistan. From the doctor's end, and then as one of the wounded. "We tend to be materialists, and let the nurses and chaplains and social workers take care of the…other stuff. And your, umm, gifts are different, aren't they? I don't think we had any of your sort of people with us."

"Arghandab and Helmand don't trust foreigners, but I am sure they were among you. You wouldn't know if they didn't want you to."

"I suppose not," John said. "I don't think ordinary Londoners know you and your mother are among us, not most of us."

"I know ordinary Londoners with nearly as much healing ability as I or my sisters have—I cannot make Aelred's wound close and disappear, as I might if he were one of my relatives, but easing pain is within reach. Or yours, if you want to learn. It might be useful to you."

John twisted. "It might, but I don't really believe in that kind of thing." He hated to seem rude.

"Yet you use green mould and cowpox and spirits of wine and believe in tiny beings in the water that no one can see."

"I do. I don't doubt your gift." He flexed his arm again. "It felt good." It was not the time to discuss placebo effects, and he had had attractive women put their hands on him with remarkable effects (if not recently, and not on his shoulder, and…).

"But if I tell you it can be taught, you don't want to discuss the matter? Not very scientific."

"Are you daring me?"

"Perhaps. Why did you take this on, if not to become something more than you feel you are?"

"To be useful," John said at last.

"Well, this would be useful. And if it doesn't work for you, you have at least tested my hypothesis."

"Fair enough," John said.

"I'll send you a link," said the river goddess, and she smiled and left him.


	2. Chapter 2

div class="chapter preface group" style="border-width: 1px 0px 0px; border-top-style: solid; outline: 0px; font-size: 15px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.5em 3em; padding: 0.643em 0.643em 0px; float: none; color: #2a2a2a; line-height: 19.4443206787109px;"  
>h3 class="title" style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: 400; font-style: inherit; font-size: 1.286em; font-family: Georgia, serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 0.5375em 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1; text-align: center; background: transparent;"Chapter 2: John Believes a Number of Impossible Thingsh3  
>div  
>div class="userstuff module" style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15px; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'GNU Unifont', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; position: relative; width: 1088.625px; float: none; word-wrap: break-word; color: #2a2a2a; line-height: 19.4443206787109px;"<br>h3 id="work" class="landmark heading" style="border-width: 0px 0px 0.25em; border-bottom-style: double; border-bottom-color: #333333; outline: 0px; font-weight: 500; font-style: inherit; font-size: 0px; font-family: Georgia, serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0.125em; line-height: 0; opacity: 0; height: 0px; clear: both; color: transparent;"Chapter Text/h3  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;"When John next looked at his email, he had, in fact, a link to a reiki teacher's site in North London.p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;"When he looked through his snail mail he found, among the bills and adverts and offers he didn't want, a hand-addressed envelope made of some paper his hands immediately recognised as Posh. John had received notes from Mycroft at times, usually when it was inconvenient for Mycroft to listen to him argue, but this was even crisper, and the return address—"The Folly, Russell Square, London, WC1"—seemed to be engraved. John found the paper knife and opened it: a single folded sheet of the same finger-caressing texture, written in dark blue fountain pen (how the hell had Sherlock been able to tell an iridium nib from, say, 14-karat gold?).p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;" p  
>blockquote style="border-width: 0px 0px 0px 2px; border-left-color: #999999; outline: 0px; font-size: 1em; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: auto auto auto 1.5em; padding: 0.75em; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"<br>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 0px auto 1.286em; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;"My Dear Doctor Watson, it readbr /span style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: oblique; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"My apprentice, PC Peter Grant, tells me he invited you to dine with us any evening of your choosing. While I second his invitation, its informality may have left you unsure of its sincerity. He has no idea how these things are done. If you would care for an informal meal this Thursday evening at 6:30, we would be delighted with your company. Our colleague from University College Hospital, Dr. Abdul Haqq Walid, will be joining us, so it need not be all be police conversation. I hope to have the pleasure of making your acquaintance./span/p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;"span style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: oblique; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"Yours faithfully,span/p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;"span style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: oblique; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"(Chief Detective Inspector) Thomas Nightingale.span/p  
>blockquote  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;"John was momentarily uncertain as to whether he should accept the invitation in writing, but he had no idea where his pad of Basildon Bond was; and it was far from certain the post would reach The Folly before Thursday. He phoned Peter Grant.p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;""Can you tell him I'll be there?" he asked, when he had explained.p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;""Certainly. He will be pleased, and so will Lesley and I—that's the other apprentice, PC Lesley May. Only she's on medical leave—" Peter hesitated.p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;""Nothing too serious?" John asked.p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;""Well, yes. I'm never sure whether I should warn people or not, but she had a rather horrible accident to her face so she'll be wearing one of those NHS masks."p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;""That must be difficult for her. But I've probably seen worse in Afghanistan; I won't stare."p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;""Thanks—at least you know how it is, then."p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;""I do," John assured him. "Umm, it's says 'an informal meal', but—"p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;""Yeah, I won't be wearing a tie but Nightingale will and Doctor Walid might be, depends on what he's up to that day."p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;""So, 'informal', 'but not as we know it'."p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;""No," said Peter. "Just think pre-war—the second one—and you'll probably be understanding him correctly."p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;""Is your boss that old?"p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;""He's certainly old-fashioned," said Peter, prevaricating like mad. "But he means well even if he thinks I'm dangerously modern, and he does want to meet you."p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;""Why?" asked John. "The river, or Sherlock?"p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;""The river; the army, as much as anything. He had an idea who Sherlock was, of course, from the papers, and you, but I know he'd never heard of your blog. Then again he hadn't heard of blogs at all."p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;""Not a technology buff, then?"p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;""Magic and computers don't get on, but I don't think he knew that before I turned up."p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;""But the Met use computers and mobile phones and—"p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;""Yeah. It's complicated," said Peter. "He's been sort of reclusive for a long time. Apparently there wasn't much call for the Met's only wizard. Or maybe there was and no one knew. He's teaching us about magic and I'm teaching him about the 21st century."p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;" p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;"Right then. John found himself in Bloomsbury Thursday evening, bemused but open to detective chief inspectors who used magic but not computers, confusingly nondenominational forms of spiritual healing, and river goddesses, trolls, and something with fangs in the Thames. Peter opened the door just as John was about to knock. "Do you always do that?" John asked.p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;""We saw you coming. Welcome to the Folly, home of British magic since 1775, according to my boss."p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;""Funny place to have 'Science is Power' over the doorway, isn't it?"p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;""Behold our patron," Peter said, indicating the statue of Sir Isaac Newton.p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;"John studied it in silence for a moment. "I suppose, the alchemy toward the end…"p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;""That was really much closer to materials-science than the work he did codifying magic."p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;""Right," said John. "I think I'm up to believing at least six impossible things before supper, now." Peter hung John's coat up, and they walked into the broad, rectangular atrium, quite dark now. John craned his neck to look at the two floors of balcony above. "Is it as big as it looks?"p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;""At least," said Peter. "Come into the library here, there's a fire."p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;"The library was cozier, a more human scale, but it still looked to John like something out of The National Trust. Or perhaps Country Life: subdued lighting, bookshelves, thick Persian carpets on the floor, and huge comfortable-looking leather chairs drawn near to the fire. A small dog lay asleep on the hearth rug, at least until it sensed John and jumped up to sniff at his ankles. John bent down and scratched its ears.p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;""That's Toby," said a woman's voice, as a slight figure rose out of the chair engulfing her. "Nightingale just called and asked me to apologise for his not being here; he and Dr. Walid are on their way."p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;""Doctor John Watson, Police Constable Lesley May," said Peter, as they shook hands.p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;""How do you do?" John's surroundings carried him back to the manners imposed on him as a small boy. PC May had beautiful eyes, and while trying not to look too hard at her mask John found himself admiring the rest of her. He was aware of her sizing him up at the same time.p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;""Very well, thank you. It's lovely to meet you, Doctor Watson."p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;""John," he suggested.p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;""Lesley," she agreed.p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;""Peter," said Peter. "Lesley, do you have to flirt with everyone?"p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;""I don't flirt with _everyone,_" she protested. "They usually run screaming when they see the mask." She turned to John. "I was glad you started writing the blog again."p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;""Oh. Good?" There was a moment when John was aware that all of them were not mentioning Sherlock, which of course was much the same as if one of them had. They all sat down, and a maid, an actual maid, came in with a tea tray. She put it on a table next to Lesley and left. Toby followed her out of the room.p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;""The good china," Lesley said, pouring out. "You rate very highly, John. What do you want in your tea?"p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;""Just milk, thanks." John stared after the departed maid.p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;""That was Molly," said Peter. "She's been here almost as long as Nightingale. And there's us, and that's all."p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;""Is Molly an apprentice, too?"p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;""No," said Peter. "I'm not quite sure what she is, but she 'does' for us. We're _learning_ magic, and she _is_."p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;""Like the troll?" asked John.p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;""Different, but yeah."p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;""Seven impossible things," said John. "Why aren't there more of you? This huge place—"p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;""I don't know," said Peter. "Something happened toward the end of the Second World War, and then most of the wizards were dead and no new ones seemed to be popping up. According to Nightingale everyone thought that magic was dwindling away."p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;""Too much cold iron?"p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;""They thought it was like that; only, iron doesn't have much effect on what we do. Magic was doing very well right up through the Industrial Revolution and the First World War. But after 1945 Nightingale was the only working wizard left, and according to him no one came along until I did, last January. A year now," Peter said. A shadow came over him; he shook it off. "A very full year. Nightingale found me while I was still a probationary constable, trying to find a ghost. At least I think that was why he took me on."p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;""You were willing to believe him," said Lesley. "Unlike pretty much everyone else in the Met."p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;""Did you find the ghost?" John asked.p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;""Eventually," said Peter.p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;""It found me," said Lesley.p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;""Is that how you you became an apprentice?"p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;"Peter and Lesley both stirred in their seats, Peter deferring to his friend. "Indirectly," she said. "This"—she gestured toward her face—"happened last spring, at the end of his first case; I've spent the last six month having surgeries and being angry and desperate. And knowing what Peter could do, I kind of taught myself—and Nightingale recruited me to make sure I learned everything else properly, formally."p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;""In all the stories, untrained wizards are supposed to be a danger to themselves and everyone else," John said, wondering which book it was that he'd read that.p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;""There aren't supposed to be any untrained wizards at all, and Nightingale considers us to be dangers to ourselves anyway," said Peter.p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;""Well, you certainly are. He makes things explode," Lesley explained to John. "— Oh, here they are."p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;"The two constables stood up as the lounge door opened; John rose with them. A sandy-haired man of fifty or so, patches on the elbows of his tweed jacket, and a younger man with brown hair, a rather elegant suit, and a silver-headed walking stick, came into the room. Neither of them fit the description John had in mind for the master of apprentice wizards—no long robes or funny hats or owl droppings. The younger man put his stick carefully against the wall, and came to John with his hand outstretched. "I am terribly sorry to have missed your arrival, Doctor Watson. CDI Thomas Nightingale; I'm so glad you could come."p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;""Thank you for having me," said John. This man was much too young to be any of the things Peter or Lesley had said, surely—barely older than John himself.p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;""And this is Doctor Abdul Haqq Walid, of University College Hospital—"p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;"John shook hands again. "You wouldn't be a gastro specialist, would you?"p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;""I am at that," said Dr. Walid in a Scots burr that matched his colouring better than his name.p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;""Mike Stamford at Barts thinks very highly of you, good to meet you."p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;""Ah, Mike, a lovely man, excellent surgeon, how do you know him?"p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;""We trained together a hundred years ago, I was a trauma surgeon—"p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;"Molly opened the lounge door. Nightingale nodded at her. "We'll be right along. Doctor Watson, dinner is served, shall we go in?"p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;"John assented with enthusiasm and they made their way into the atrium, but then he noticed Lesley heading toward the stairs. "Aren't you joining us?"p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;""I'll…meet you afterwards," said Lesley. "The mask—it's too bloody difficult to work around. Particularly if Molly's left the salad greens whole, I look like a rabbit."p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;"John looked at the other men. Peter looked almost angry, Nightingale patient. Walid said softly, "I'm her doctor; well, among them."p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;""If you usually take your mask off to eat, umm, please don't feel you need to run away on my account," John said to Lesley. "Afghanistan, remember? Worse things happen in war."p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;""You don't eat dinner with them," Lesley said. John thought she was open to persuasion.p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;""I have," he said. "Although they were not such delightful companions and tended to talk about football and farting, most of the time."p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;""That sounds like Lesley," said Peter.p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;"Lesley rolled her eyes, then looked, considering, at John.p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;""I'd show you my scar, but it's not that impressive, and I was brought up to wear my shirt in company. Please, if you're worried about my comfort zone, you should know it's a bit wider than most people's. Fingers in the fridge."p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;""Whole heads," recalled Peter.p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;"Lesley looked at John another moment and then, slowly (but not at all seductively), took off the mask. John examined the ruin of her face: scarred, uneven, obscenely broken and melted. "The skin grafts are taking very well," he said.p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;""Thank you," she said. "That's something. As I imagine you know, it's going very slowly and with no real hope of anything normal-looking when they finish." She finished defiantly, daring him to say anything glib.p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;""And obviously they've done wonders to get you speaking so well again. Are you in much pain? Or rather, are you actually taking the meds when it hurts? No, of course you're not. I know everyone else has told you off for that, but I'll just add that unless you find yourself wanting to lie about taking fewer rather than more, you're not addicted and being in pain won't make it heal any faster."p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;"Lesley blushed, in patches. It was either sad or fascinating, and bore out John's remark about the grafts doing well.p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;""I'll tell Molly you'll be eating with us, then," said Nightingale. "Just be a moment." When Nightingale returned to escort them into the dining room John almost expected to have to take someone's arm, but they weren't quite so formal as that. The five of them milled to one reasonably-sized table in one corner of a large dining room, echoingly empty except for them. Nightingale took the head of the table; John sat across from Walid with Lesley on his right and Peter across from her.p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;""So after your time in Afghanistan you retrained as a general practitioner?" Walid asked.p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;""I can't operate anymore, nerve damage in my shoulder. Got shot." Both the older men made soft noises of comprehension into their soup; Peter and Lesley looked at John a little longer. John looked back at them. "I was lucky," he said gently.p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;""I try to feel like I am," Lesley said. "None of the other people who had this happen to them lived. None of them had Peter there with wet towels."p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;""Advice," muttered Peter, waving his soup spoon at Walid.p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;""You don't have to feel lucky all the time," John said. "But it's good to remember it when you can." That was far more personal than he usually went outside of office hours. He felt, strangely, much older than the constables and much younger than the other two men. "Doctor Walid, how did you come to be part of this? Are you a wizard too?"p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;""No, indeed. All I know of magic is its effects on the human body, which are no in any way benign—"p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;""I beg your pardon," said Nightingale.p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;""Thomas, I've seen far more brains with hyperthaumaturgical degradation than I have cases like yours, and so have you." Walid turned back to John. "I dabble in forensic pathology. I ran into Thomas at the British Library, both asking to see the same mediaeval Arabic volume. A week later he turned up in connection with a case where the deceased actually had butterflies in his stomach—live butterflies, at least I thought they were—"p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;""Zombie butterflies?" asked Peter.p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;""Live things that _looked_ like butterflies," said Nightingale. "I have one in a tube in my study, but I shouldn't let it out if I were you." Everyone else at the table shuddered.p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;""And you, Doctor Watson, what brings you to this irrational gathering?" Walid asked.p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;""Last autumn, I had a psychotic interlude on Westminster Bridge, where an African matriarch appeared out of thin air, read my mind, and told me to buck up and carry on. And later there was corroborating evidence that she wasn't a delusion. And then…"p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;"He couldn't explain that finding out from Mycroft just _why_ Sherlock Holmes had jumped to his death in front of him had helped John turn a corner; he barely admitted, even to himself, Lestrade's belief the jump had not actually led to Sherlock's death. It gave John a kind of carefully unexamined hope. He turned away from the slightest thought of that. He threw in his lot with people who believed in Mother Thames and God knew what else, and continued.p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;""I feel like a fool for saying this, but my life just wasn't _enough_." Peter was looking covertly at Nightingale, who wasn't looking at anyone. Lesley and Dr. Walid were looking at him. "A different kind of angry and desperate from yours, I guess," he said to Lesley. "But I thought I would ask Mother Thames if she had any work I could do. It was that or join Doctors Without Borders, and I don't want to leave London. Even if some people think it would be healthier." If Sherlock's notoriety had cost him the greater part of his privacy, at least he didn't have to explain why his life might have had failures of meaning these days.p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;""Effra told us you had offered Mother Thames your sword," Nightingale said. "I'd be interested in knowing if that was really what you said."p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;"John told them. "I hadn't thought of it as homage or fealty, but it sounded right when she did," he concluded.p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;""You were either canny or fortunate in your choice of words," Nightingale said. "It is perilous to deal with the span style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: oblique; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"genii locorumspan even with some power of one's own."/p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;""I've barely met Lady Tyburn, and I can't say that I want to know her any better. But Raven seemed safe enough."p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;""I'm certain people say the same of you," said Nightingale. "But I'm aware of what went into your Army training and the kind of thing you've been involved with since your return. The Rivers have worshippers, and acolytes, but Mother Thames accepted your service as a warrior. At some point you're likely to be asked to act as one."p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;"John considered how odd it was to be eating with three police officers and to be saying, as he was, "I hope she won't ask me to kill anyone. Those days are behind me." Though he recalled reassuring Lestrade of the same thing more than once (mostly truthfully).p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;""Perhaps not so far as you think," said Nightingale.p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;"The hair on the back of John's neck prickled. "Be that as it may. Mother Thames's first orders to me were to go home and go to sleep, and go to work in the morning. All she and her daughters have asked so far of me has been from the medical side."p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;""Peter told me about you and Aelred—"p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;""You didn't happen to get a blood or tissue sample, did you?" broke in Doctor Walid.p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;"John shook his head. "The opportunity to discuss that with him didn't come up, sorry. I'll keep it in mind for the future, though, I promise." He turned back to Nightingale. "Do you have any idea what could have bitten him, sir? Something dragged him by his arm along the riverbank."p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;""We usually attribute it to a pack of feral dogs," said Nightingale. Lesley nudged Peter and muttered something that sounded like 'plastic bags'; Nightingale gave her a quelling glance. "But there are beasts in the river—and elsewhere—that don't usually trouble ordinary mortals. Lesley, you will present me with a thousand-word essay about them on Monday afternoon."p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;""Yes, sir. Sorry, sir," Lesley said, showing no shred of repentance.p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;""It must have been a nasty wound indeed, for them to have called you in, Doctor Watson."p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;""It was. I wanted to take him to AE but she said he wouldn't go. And she said if he'd been one of her relatives she could have healed it by laying on of hands, which seems hard to believe—"p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;""I threw a relative of theirs bleeding out—almost completely bled out—from having a wrought-iron railing stuck through him—into the Thames and he was fine in minutes," said Peter. "That was as strange as anything else that's happened to me since I started here."p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;""And magic can fix something magic didn't cause," said Lesley, pursuing some argument begun long ago, to judge by the concerned looks the other three at the table gave her.p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;""We tend to define magic as something out of the ordinary natural order," said Nightingale. "Hence the term 'super' natural. But for magical creatures, magical 'persons' if you insist—"p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;""'Creatures' aren't accorded human rights and we don't make 'agreements' with them—" muttered Peter.p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;""Magic is not anything more unusual than the laws of gravity are for us, and hardly as well examined. That's why our interactions with them are fraught with danger, why I spend so much time trying to persuade you to be cautious, why Doctor Walid scans your brains, and why it doesn't work the same way on them as it does on us."p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;""After I finished checking Aelred's arm he asked Raven to do laying-on-of-hands on him—he wasn't her kin so she couldn't just zip him up, but it seemed to do him good and—" John hesitated. Still, he felt safe among these rational people, despite their specialities—"it felt very good when she put her hands on my shoulder. I didn't quite know what to make of it. Would you call that magic?"p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;""It's not the Newtonian sort of magic," said Nightingale. "span style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: oblique; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"Pacespan Peter's desire for empiricism, I think laying-on-of-hands will at some point be more easily explained, whether as a partially self-generated placebo effect or some charismatic psychological effect worker by the healer."/p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;""In other words," said Lesley, "you don't believe in it."p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;""In other words," said Nightingale, "I don't know anything about it. Abdul? Is there a tradition of spiritual healing in Islam?"p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;"Walid nodded. "Quite a long-established one, though I have preferred a more, mm, exoteric form of medicine. From the little I know of any of them it seems in line with Asian beliefs like span style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: oblique; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"chispan and span style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: oblique; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"prana/span. In the course of my practice I've met a number of people who seemed to have something of a gift, usually nurses or chaplains. I have encountered many reiki practitioners. Pleasantly non-denominational. Of course most religiously devout people consider it healing to be a gift of a fundamentally loving God."/p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;""More power to them," said Nightingale. Walid raised his eyebrows; Nightingale ducked his head briefly and gave his friend a small smile. "Sorry."p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;""Raven thought I ought to take reiki training from a woman in North London," said John, banishing the looming questions of theodicy.p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;""Interesting," said Nightingale. "Does she want you to do this as a condition of your fealty?"p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;""I don't think she's that emphatic, but she told me it would be useful and that it was unscientific of me not to see if that kind of healing could be taught." John shrugged. "Which, I suppose… and really, anything that makes people think they can get better helps them get better. But it seems odd, like being ordained, perhaps? I read a bit about it online. Once the 'channels' are opened, you say some words and hold some symbols in your mind—people disagree on if the words or the symbols even have a meaning—and the chi or whatever is supposed to come out of you and make the other person feel better. And you can do it on yourself, or to someone at a distance."p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;"Walid nodded. "That's what I've always heard, yes."p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;""I suppose making shapes in your mind could be a way to focus your intention," said John, before he noticed the three magicians at the table looking strained. "Have I said something wrong?"p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;""No, no," Nightingale said. "But making a particular shape in one's mind is the way Newtonian magicians cast a spell. Very specific shapes, and not everyone can sense or conceive of them well enough to…activate them."p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;""It would be interesting," murmured Lesley, "to compare the two systems."p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;""You? Believe in this?" Peter asked.p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;""People do reiki to me after the operations on my face; it feels good. I didn't know you could do it to yourself."p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;""Does it help?"p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;""I thought it did. Can anyone learn, not like—all this?" Lesley's gesture encompassed the whole huge house.p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;""From what I understand, anyone can do reiki: little children, even a motivated service animal; but that's where the claims get muddy around the edges," said Walid.p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;""And their origin stories only took place early in the last century, but they aren't borne out by contemporary records. At least not according to the websites I visited, which God knows is hardly proof of anything," said John.p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;""You sound like you don't want to believe in it," said Peter.p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;""I am a fully-licensed, fully-trained doctor of conventional Western medicine," said John. "I don't think anyone will revoke my license if I spend two mornings with a self-styled white witch, but—"p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;""Oh, is this Maggie Armitage?" asked Nightingale.p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;""That was the teacher Raven suggested, yes," said John.p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;""She's a lovely woman. Possibly mad as a hatter, but she thinks I'm a stuffy old man, We get along very well. Mind you, it was some years ago, but I can't imagine she's changed. I'm sorry, do go on, Doctor Watson."p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;""The kind of science I use is empirically proven and tested as objectively as we know how," John said. "And so many people who have practised any other kind of medicine have poisoned people, or bled them to death, or defrauded them, or killed off rhinos, that conventional physicians tend to find themselves diametrically opposed to anything that hasn't been duplicated and peer-reviewed and above all, explained."p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;""But I'm sure you've seen how irrational beliefs can influence a patient's progress for weal or woe," said Walid. "It's one of the frustrating things about medicine; at least it used to be. Now I've accepted that people aren't just neat packages of more or less working parts, that it goes beyond merely 'a ghost in the machine,' I'm a better doctor: I don't expect things to go according to my plans, and I know that, beyond the patient's conscious agency, and perhaps even the patient's unconscious agency—"p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;""Excuse me?" asked Peter. "Please what?"p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;"Walid took a sip of water. "Say you have a basically healthy man with some quite curable complaint, but his wife's just died. He may say he wants to get well—may even actually want to—but his body, his heart or his subconscious as you will—aren't so sure, and he may remain ill far longer than you expect. Or even die. Many cases like that, some of them even just so clear-cut. Am I correct, Doctor Watson?"p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;""Please call me John. You are entirely correct, and then there's the whole range of psychosomatic symptoms—" John saw Peter smile at him; he knew the story of John's leg.p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;"Walid nodded. "So even without invoking spirituality of any kind, we in Western medicine have had to admit there are areas where our methods don't have any effect. Or not enough."p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;""I'm perfectly willing to admit that," said John. "I don't think anyone finishes medical training without learning that there are limits to what we can do. I'm apparently uncomfortable to find that not all the boundaries are where I thought they were."p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;""You're willing to believe in river goddesses, but not in something you may be able to do yourself?" suggested Nightingale.p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;""I thought I knew who and what I was," said John. "Lots of things are all right for other people to do, but not for me." It struck him what sort of things he would have included among them when he was a student: killing people outside the army; killing people as part of the army; denying awkward facets of his sexuality. Lying to the police and the government as a matter of course. All still worth a pause for thought. "I've never thought faith-healing was was something for me, but I asked the universe to send me something interesting, and I don't think this is a place I should really draw a line. Why not?"p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;""I'd like to take the reiki training," said Lesley, "and it would be nice to have company."p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;""I'd like to be more useful," John told her, "and I'd enjoy your company as well."p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;" p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;"John couldn't tell what the dynamics were at that table; nothing so simple as who might be sleeping with whom. It was as pleasant an evening as he had had in years, intelligent people, none of them waspish or swathing their words in veils of meaning. They had all accepted the impossibility that Newton (Newton!) had codified, that had lit John's first-aid and heated his water. (As he stitched up a… troll.) He wanted to hear stories from Walid, the other Muggle and the other physician. He liked Peter and Lesley; they were nice kids, and as sharp as anyone John knew among Lestrade's minions. And Nightingale…the older—he believed that now, but it was hard when he was looking at him—man was a puzzle. Not just his seeming youth; he spoke like a man who had seen combat, somehow, who had lost more than he'd known he had and was walking carefully, regaining his balance among the living. John knew that feeling.p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;""I hope you'll come again, Doctor Watson," Nightingale said, after Molly had brought them a sweet (treacle tart; it hit some ancient memory in John's taste buds), and then a cheese board.p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;""I would love to," John said sincerely. He would have to tell Lestrade not to worry. No one whose table groaned beneath such exquisitely-calibrated cholesterol deserved Lestrade's outright distrust.p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;""Perhaps after you and Constable May have been initiated into the reiki mysteries," said Nightingale. "Though I fear I have less interest in such comparative studies than anyone else here. And that I cannot linger, this evening. Abdul?"p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;""John, good to have met you. Give Mike my best?" John nodded.p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;""It's all right, sir," Peter said. "I was going to show Doctor Watson the tech cave before I drive him home."p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;""Tech cave?"p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;""It's Peter's football sanctuary," Lesley explained. The two younger people walked John out the back of the main building, to the floor above the vehicles in the garage that was so obviously an old stable-house. "Magic affects computer circuitry very badly—"p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;""Ruins it completely—"p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;""So Peter made a kind of nerve centre outside the house-"p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;""Which is magically roped-off-"p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;"The room above the coach-house actually felt different to John, but he suspected it was mostly that they had been excused from the grown-ups' company and were now free to go off and play. "Wow," he said, when he saw Peter's screen. "You went for it."p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;""This is the closest thing I've ever had to a place of my own," said Peter, "and I'm likely to be here for the next nine years, apparently."p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;""You think he'll make us stay for the whole apprenticeship?" Leslie asked.p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;""I'm not hating it here," Peter said. "Meals and laundry and not much of a commute."p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;""I hadn't thought about that," said Lesley. "2022's a long way off."p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;"Peter flicked on the television. "Arsenal hasn't a chance. Do you like football, Doctor?"p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;""At this scale, of course I do," said John. "Better than being there, in some ways."p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;""It's brilliant for the cinematography on some films, too," said Lesley. "John, will you date our boss?"p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;""LESLEY—" said Peter. John waved it off.p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;""I'm not in the market these days," John said. "And it's been a long time since I went out with anyone older than I am. Or a man. I'm not saying it's out of the question—" he was saying that for his own benefit, but he was pleased how calm he sounded—"but among other things I didn't feel any spark. You flirt more than he does."p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;""And that's the problem, right there," said Lesley.p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;""We don't know that he's even gay," interrupted Peter.p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;""Oh, come on, Peter—"p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;""I'm just saying you can't read him the same way you'd read someone who was really forty-four or whatever. It was different then. Turing."p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;""What do you think, John?"p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;""I know for certain I don't know," John said, feeling his age. "And I don't think it's your job to be trying to fix him up."p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;"Lesley sighed. "I just think—he's so lonely, sometimes. And I don't think he has a clue how to go about it."p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;""He's a hundred and twelve years old," said Peter. "He lost everything in World War Two. Everyone. He says himself he thinks he slept through the Nineteen-Fifties and most of the Sixties."p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;""Lesley," said John, "It's really kind of you, and I know you mean well, but he'll date when he wants to, when he finds someone he wants to know better. If he is gay or bi, he's noticed it's much different from his own youth. Christ, even if he's _straight_, it's different from his youth. It's different from MY youth."p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;"They were all silent for a moment. "Well," said Lesley, "I suppose I should apologise."p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;""Not at all," said John. "I'm taking it as a compliment."p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;""You are very sweet," she said. "I'm off to swot up my fabulous creatures. And if it turns out you'd rather date me I hope I haven't put you off too badly. Send me that link, we'll do the reiki thing, then, eh?"p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;""I will feel better having another rationalist around, yeah, thanks," said John. "I'll send it when I get home. Maggie Armitage's website seemed flexible about dates, we'll work something out."p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;"Lesley nodded, and said goodnight, and left Peter and John watching Milan savage Arsenal. "Sorry," said Peter, handing John a bottle of Beck's.p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;""This is fine," protested John.p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;"Peter sank back into his chair. "Lesley, I meant. She does mean well."p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;""No apology needed," said John.p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;""Do you— I mean, you, I mean, shit, sorry—"p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;""Have dated men, didn't date Sherlock, sort of wish I had, kind of messed up. And really, did not feel anything like that from Nightingale."p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;""Lesley wants people to be happy. She feels like all of us with faces have no problems at all."p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;"John looked at the younger man, sunk into his chair, lines starting on his face John had seen in the Army.p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;""And I think you know that's not true."p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;"Peter shook his head. "Of course it isn't. Worse when you're Job, a copper, I mean." John nodded. Lestrade used the phrase sometimes. He waited, in case Peter wanted to say more.p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;"He did, after a moment, glancing up at John and then away again. "Case in October. Three women—suspects—I don't know how to describe them. They were hurting people but they didn't span style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: oblique; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"knowspan that they were—they killed themselves."/p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;""That's horrible," John said. Peter looked up again.p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;""I'm sorry—"p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;""No, don't be," John said. "It's not something people feel they can talk about, and if the way Sherlock died can do any good for anyone at all—It's harder pretending nothing like that ever happened to me. You said suspects but… friends of yours, at all as well?"p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;""One of them, yeah. Really a close friend."p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;""You loved her."p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;""I think I did, if I thought of anything at the time. The way I felt after she died, I think I must have. Being with her wasn't the best idea in the first place, I'm well aware… and I don't think a magic glamour is a good enough excuse not to have noticed…" He shrugged.p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;""But you didn't notice—what?"p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;""Oh, she should have been a suspect, it should have been front and centre in my head. It was right there, I can see it in my notes…" He looked up at John. "It's hard to explain. They didn't know they were doing harm. I didn't do a very good job when I figured it out, didn't think. It came as a shock to her, to all of them. I keep thinking of what I could have done differently."p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;""Yeah, I know that one." John wondered what to say, wondered what people had said that had actually helped him. Nothing glib. "Three of them?p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;""They were sisters, sort of," said Peter. "Close as makes no difference. I should have known they might…" He broke off and John knew the sound of someone just keeping it in control.p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;""You can't. You can't know. You don't know unless it's something they've been thinking about for long time, and even then…"p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;"Peter shook his head. "It all happened in a kind of a rush. And there was—outside pressure, it didn't make any of us more careful."p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;""Do you, are there any friends who knew both of you? Anyone who knew her you can talk about her with?"p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;""No. I'm not sure Lesley really knows I was…or Nightingale, but he wouldn't be any help. He thought they were Creatures of the Night. Maybe they were, but no more than some of the other people I know. I mean, as far as—where do you draw the line? I'm in no position to say who's Other and who's Us. Nice white people wonder about me every day on the Tube."p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;""And as a police officer you have another set of Us and Them. Civilians don't understand."p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;""Too right," said Peter. "Is it like that with doctors?"p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;""Easier to turn on and off, I think,. For me, anyway," said John. "You argue a lot with Nightingale?"p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;""About that? Yes. But it's good arguing; we respect one another. Hell, we like one another. We have each others' backs, it makes it possible to argue with him. But I can't talk about Simone with him."p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;"John hesitated. He wasn't Sherlock; he didn't tell people all the things they were keeping elaborately hidden from themselves and one another. But this was important, he sensed. "Or about Lesley?"p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;"Peter glanced up, colouring perceptibly. "You picked up on that, did you?"p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;""Or maybe I'm just making the usual assumptions, but you and she are in something intense, together, and it looks complicated as hell."p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;""Nightingale, God bless him, swallowed once when he saw Lesley doing magic, and did his duty. He said he assumed that if the Met found her a worthy officer, he ought not to say any different. His boarding school was all boys, but that's not something confined to magicians. And he keeps trying to recall that Lesley and I are adults, which means we won't do anything so foul to one another that we can't both be his apprentices. He and I both worry about her."p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;""But he's not someone you can confide in about your feelings?"p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;""You met him, right?" said Peter. "The Empire isn't dead."p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;""All right, then," said John. "It isn't any of my business, but I'm here, and I see it. She doesn't know about—Simone?—and you?"p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;""We've never spoken of it. But that was…if I say it was like an enchantment, and we both overlook that I might mean it more literally than you would—Lesley wasn't living in the Folly until a month after Simone and her sisters died, she was at home in Essex for the whole case. And…I'm not—" Peter broke off, sighed, sipped his beer. "Okay," he said, after a minute. "Suppose I just say I loved Simone. That it was good and real. And at the same time it was wrong, because it played hell with my abilities as a copper, and that was where my duty lay, I know that. Even if I can blame some of it on forces beyond my control, I still should have done better." He looked up at John, who was perching on the arm of the couch. "But even if it wasn't my whole heart, I still felt it."p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;""Do you regret loving her?"p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;""No," said Peter. "I don't, except, when I look back at me and Simone now, I see all the papered-over flaws, all the little sealed fantasy world of it. And it led to my cocking up the end of the case and then indirectly—I keep telling myself, _indirectly_, to her death. She's gone. And I've loved Lesley longer and better, and I'm glad she doesn't seem to be aware of Simone. She'd be right to give me hell about the unprofessionalism, and she would, no fear."p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;""So what are you waiting for?" John asked. "Do you think you need more time to recover from losing Simone?"p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;""No. Well. Maybe. But before Lesley's accident, we were both busy, and we didn't have time and we both wanted our careers…and I'm not sure she wanted me that way. I didn't want to cock up our friendship."p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;""I know that one," said John.p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;""You said something like that a minute ago—you wish you and he had been, ah."p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;""It's easy to think that now," John said. "I remember how I felt at the time, I had reasons not to want to. And now…?" He shrugged. "Lost opportunities are always greener, aren't they? But Lesley isn't dead, and she won't wait forever."p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;"Peter sighed. "I hear you. But I can't, I can't go to her now, not while—" he faltered. John was puzzled.p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;""Are you waiting for it to get better? Because you you don't seem—put off by the disfigurement."p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;""I'm not that kind of bastard, I hope," Peter said, raising his head from his hands. "Though, since we're having this kind of talk, I can't say it wouldn't be easier the first time in the dark. She was beautiful; I mean, her face was, she's still lovely in herself and her, umm, figure—and no, realistically of course I'm not waiting for it to get better. We flirted a lot before, but she never—we were friends, before, and that mattered more than anything. I was fairly sure she didn't really fancy me."p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;""'Before' was a different time," said John. "Now, she needs, bone-deep—excuse me—to know she's still attractive. Still desirable. I know this. I knew women and men who had horrible injuries, and I saw what a difference it made for someone reassure them that whatever else they'd lost they could still be sexual."p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;""She gets really angry if she thinks someone is feeling sorry for her. She doesn't want to be a pity fuck—"p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;""She wouldn't be, and I'll bet she knows that—oh, damn," John said, realising. "And you don't want to just be her….ticket back to a normal sex life."p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;""It's a bit like a pity fuck in reverse, isn't it?" Peter said. John admired the steadiness he was managing to put in his voice. "If she'd take me because she knows I wouldn't refuse."p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;""That would be something, for her to trust you that much," John suggested.p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;""I don't want to seem as selfish I think this will sound, but…I'd really rather she got over that hurdle with someone else, because I don't know if her and whoever it is would be able to have any kind of relationship afterwards." Peter raised his face from his hands. "How awful a person does that make me?"p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;""It could go either way," said John, as honestly as he could. "She trusts you a great deal, more apparently than you trust her."p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;""Yeah," said Peter. "Doesn't mean I don't care about her."p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;""She won't wait forever, and you could lose her altogether."p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;"Peter shook his head. "I know what you mean, but we're in this apprenticeship for the long haul; it's not like we were just friends. I'm sure if I asked Nightingale he'd just tell me to keep it in my trousers, but it's more complicated than that. Lesley's side of things, to begin with."p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;""You don't think he'd tell her to just keep it in her trousers too?"p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;""I'm not sure it would cross his mind that she might have any desires to stuff back in. Professor McGonagall would be awfully handy here, sometimes. Nightingale never thought he'd end up teaching apprentices; he makes it seem as though including Lesley as an apprentice is no big deal, but I'm not sure he wants to think it through. And the things he's teaching us, now, were for twelve year-olds in his day. Most of the time he's very good at remembering we're adults. Most of the time we act like it," Peter added, with a very small smile.p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;"The atmosphere lightened; John could tell Peter had got something off his chest, even if John wasn't quite sure what it was. "All I can suggest is that you go on being as honest as you can, with Lesley but more importantly with yourself. And think about taking some risks that are personal, not professional. It's hard to look back sometimes—but you know that."p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;""I do look back," said Peter. "Sometimes I'm glad I had what I had with Simone, and sometimes I think it made things worse. For her; I know it did for me. But I'm pretty sure it was her idea. Where Lesley wasn't easy to romance before, and now—" He faced John firmly. "If me and Lesley ever happen, I don't want it to be a one-off, a nice psychological pick-me-up for her."p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;""I do understand," said John. "But what if you're the only one who can do that for her? Can you lie back, and think of England?"p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;""If that was all it was?"p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;""I don't think either of us can say 'all that was' and have any idea how much it could mean," said John. "Might be better to think you were giving her everything you can, and she was accepting everything she could take. There are less good reasons to risk having your heart broken."p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;"Peter thought for a few minutes. Milan kept the ball mostly in Arsenal's end, barring a short-lived rally or so. Finally Peter said, "I don't know that anything will come of it—really, we're mostly very busy; but I'll think about what you said, thanks."p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;""I'm sorry if I'm poking my nose where you weren't asking for it," said John. "And any time you want to talk about Simone, or suicide, or policing—or football—, I'm up for it. I don't say much about Sherlock's death, but I'd have been in much worse shape without our friends."p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;""Thanks," said Peter. "And I don't think we've done much to ease your culture shock about Mama Thames, but you know we're here, too."p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;"John nodded. He stayed for the rest of the game; they didn't say much, except, as Peter pulled his car up in front of Baker Street, he said, "You know, you don't have to date my boss, but maybe you could date my partner?"p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;""No," said John. "No. Apart from everything else, my webmistress would decapitate both of us if she caught me with someone younger than she is, considering that was the main reason I had for turning her down. Maybe the white witch will know someone?"p  
>p style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; list-style: none; margin: 1.286em auto; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;"Peter laughed, unhappily; and they said good night and parted.p  
>div 


End file.
